First published in 1814, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours is a taxonomically organized guide to color in the natural world. Compiled by German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner, the book was expanded and enhanced in 1821 by Patrick Syme, who added color swatches and further color descriptions, bringing the total number of classified hues to 110. The resulting resource has been invaluable not only to artists and designers but also to zoologists, botanists, mineralogists, anatomists, and explorers, including Charles Darwin on the famous voyage of the Beagle.
Nature’s Palette makes this remarkable volume available to today’s readers, and is now fully enhanced with new illustrations of all the animals, plants, and minerals Werner referenced alongside each color swatch. Readers can see “tile red” in a piece of porcelain jasper, the breast of a cock bullfinch, or a Shrubby Pimpernel. They can admire “Berlin blue” on a piece of sapphire, the Hepatica flower, or the wing feathers of a jay. Interspersed throughout the book are lavish feature pages displaying cases of taxidermy, eggs, shells, feathers, minerals, and butterflies, with individual specimens cross-referenced to the core catalog.
Featuring contributions by leading natural history experts along with more than 1,000 color illustrations and eight gatefolds, Nature’s Palette is the ideal illustrated reference volume for visual artists, naturalists, and anyone who is captivated by color.
"[Nature’s Palette] is filled with hundreds of lushly detailed, full-color 18th- and 19th- century engravings that exquisitely illustrate Werner and Syme’s complete animal, botanical, and mineral references, along with informative essays and additional visual material, color charts, anatomical diagrams, and photos of rainbow-colored butterflies, eggs, and beetles. Although Werner and Syme’s system has faded from use, it still teaches us to look closely at the world around us."—Lauren Moya Ford, Hyperallergic
"[A] richly illustrated reference guide, punctuated by essays from botanists and ecologists. . . . Designers and artists will appreciate the contemporary reference guide, as will anyone seeking to repaint their bedroom. Unlike parsing paint chips at a hardware store, exploring color through animals, plants and minerals illuminates its many tools and signals while providing context for why we find certain colors so appealing."—Amy Brady, Scientific American
"Utterly beguiling. . . . Each of the book’s five sections opens with facsimiles of one or more of Syme’s ten colour tables, followed by a historical essay, and then a walk through each of the 108 individual colours in Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours. . . . The result is a book bursting with pictures, teeming with information, its almost manic energy barely held in check. In addition to the massively expanded index of colours, in Nature’s Palette you’ll find charts documenting the growth, with almost every successive addition, of Werner’s original list, as well as full-page photographs of naturalia that show the importance of colour to just about every ‘ology’: painstakingly arrayed collections of eggs and shells, stuffed birds in bell jars, squadrons of scarabs."—Max Norman, Apollo Magazine
"Exquisite . . . make your world a bit more colorful with this must-read book."—Madeleine Muzdakis, MyModernMet.com
"Flipping through the pages [of Nature’s Palette], you'll be as inspired as Darwin when he researched the Galapagos and hopefully will make as resounding of an impact on you as the islands did on him. Whether you're a graphic designer, painter, botanist, a casual lover of nature, or all of the above, these pages almost sing with inspiration. The color range is impeccable, and it's beyond fascinating to see how many different shades of one color can be found naturally in our world. It's one thing to sift through a digital swatch, but there's a whole new level of craft when finding out which colors are found in each part of our ecosystem and environment."—Chloe Gordon, PrintMag.com
"[Nature’s Palette] is a comprehensive visual compendium that ranges from large renderings of red coral to full-page charts spanning fine-grained marble to smoky quartz."—Grace Ebert, Colossal
"Nature's Palette [is] a weighty tome that acts as a colour catalogue for the natural world. Throughout the book, which features around 800 illustrations, colour swatches are matched with their originators across the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. . . . The book creates a stunning reference point for nature and for colour, which transcends its historical roots and is as fascinating now as ever for zoologists, botanists, scientists, artists and designers alike."—Emily Goslin, Creative Boom
"Patrick Baty’s Nature’s Palette updates Werner’s dictionary of colors with lush illustrations of the animals, plants and minerals that bring the 19th-century swatches to life. Whether you’re apt to wonder about the flaxen stripes on a hornet’s abdomen or have never considered the creamy depths of a common opal, Baty’s book may be just the thing to color you curious."—Jennifer Winger, Nature Conservancy
"A lavishly illustrated, gorgeous coffee table book."—Clellie Lynch, Berkshire Eagle
"Fascinating and beautifully produced. Nature's Palette demonstrates the importance of Werner and Syme in the history of the classification of color and the history of science more broadly."—Adrian Tinniswood, author of The Royal Society: And the Invention of Modern Science
